Speciesism

     It really caught my attention when I was searching for articles, papers, or posts about the speciesism regarding donkeys. I was extremely surprised – and frustrated - because I didn’t find many things. Most of the texts mentioned donkeys as a brief example of speciesism practice.

          Therefore, I decided to write some thoughts and examples from my personal experience. First of all, male and non-castrated donkeys are called jack or jackass. Does this sound familiar to you? I bet it does! “Jackass” is a common and cultural American expression for “stupid people” or “stubborn people”, which is even registered on reliable dictionaries. This is the esult of ordinary culture and lack of knowledge regarding this animal’s behavior; a great part of society still believes that jackasses are really passive or headstrong beings. People don’t get to know the natural behavior of donkeys and are still reluctant in reviewing their previous concepts. Maybe if they did, a person who was “insulted” as jackass would be very happy in response, because donkeys are extremely gentle, patient and smart! 

Ethology

        Donkey’s ethology is an interesting issue to talk about. Particularly, I have never thought of seriously searching for their true and natural behavior. Most people are used to viewing donkeys as passive animals, with those indifferent facial expressions and resignation traits. Or, when we see either personally or by records, scenes of animal abuse or bugging (to be discussed later in the blog), donkeys usually emit those characteristic noisy sounds and kicks.

       

Donkey's mutual grooming

     However, if searching really carefully (what I highly recommend), we will see that donkeys are affectionate animals. They are very social, love being among other creatures and build lasting bonds with humans and other animals, based on companionship and confidence. Related to that, these animals are easily trainable and are capable of readily responding to voice commands.

            Regarding social structures, donkeys seek companionship and they commonly call for their foals or another donkey by specific sounds to mutually groom each other excitingly. Curiously, they smell and blow in each other’s nose as a form of greeting.

            One very important behavior that most people don’t know is the manner in which donkeys react when facing a threatening situation (e.g., predators): they usually stop; stand still; study the circumstance carefully; and can really face it in a aggressive way, by loudly vocalizing or even kicking the potential predator.

Video - donkey reacts when facing a threatening circumstance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtQLIU4ze0g

Video – donkey curious with its cat companion:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLXIJTQl1Wc

Online resources:

            http://woolshed1.blogspot.com/2008/11/animal-behaviour-and-welfare-donkey_22.html

                http://woolshed1.blogspot.com/2008/11/animal-behaviour-and-welfare-donkey_3201.html

Current Social Perceptions

     Donkeys are globally used for pastoral movement, carting, and transportation. Since they were primarily domesticated in an extremely arid region (Eastern Africa), they are highly adapted to extreme weather conditions and ecosystems. Furthermore, these animals have their digestive tract prepared to digest pasture in poor conditions, such as dry plants with low protein or fiber content. This is one more reason for the popularity of donkeys - convenient and tough creatures to transport and bear different kinds of loads.

   

Donkeys carrying water

  

     Humans realized, in the course of time, that donkeys were the most ideal creatures to protect sheep and goats flocks. Donkeys graze with these other species, bed down with them and protect them against canine predators. Their brave and loud reaction towards threats - predators, canines, strange caregivers, etc - made them the most adequate protection animal.

Donkey in zootherapy

     Over time, new perspectives towards donkeys were raised and they began to be treated as pets. Their confidence in human, patient behavior and kindness were the main features for this new “status”.

    Currently, novel roles are being assigned to donkeys such as companions for post-weaning foals, easing the trauma of separation from their mothers; riding animals in handicapped programs, for people with mental and physical disabilities; and as a babysitter, since they are very patient and affectionate creatures, with which kids can build a strong bond (especially with jennets and geldings).

Online resources:

http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_10921163

http://www.donkeys.com/info2.htm

http://www.canterbury.ac.uk/news/newsRelease.asp?newsPk=2105

Social History/Domestication

          The donkey’s history isn’t very easy to tell.  Experts have found many anatomical and physiological similarities between this animal and the African wild ass (photo). Since the latter was an animal spread throughout Eastern Africa (Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Somalia, etc), it is strongly believed that the donkey’s domestication history started there.

Egyptian hieroglyph

Paleontological and archeological findings suggested this theory, which conjectures that these African wild asses were among humans for at least 20,000 years ago, as in the example of a donkey-like portrayal on murals on the tomb of pharaoh Tutankhamun. This led to the deduction that these animals had a role in noble hunting. In fact, some other important and groundbreaking findings made a couple of years ago suggest that the most domesticated asses started appearing by 6,000 – 7,000 years ago when archeologists discovered some fossils really similar to today’s donkeys, in Egypt, near Cairo.

        But… why were these animals introduced among human management? Some researchers say that, in this really arid region, cattle were the most common creatures used for transportation. However, it seems that an unpredictable increase in desertification

Egyptian hieroglyph

compromised the cattle’s performance and their “job” was not efficient  anymore. That was the main point for attempting to include the African wild asses during migrations. Over time, these animals were selected by both human and environmental changes. As a consequence, they became gradually smaller and developed some mild anatomic differences, such as their metacarpals, which became smaller and less robust. Indeed, an important anatomic location that should thoroughly be examined is the animal’s spinal column. This is due to the donkey’s ancestry being extremely used as pack animals. They could handle the environmental inclement weather much better than the cattle. In addition, their frequent use in transportation could most likely result in spondylitis (a disorder of the spinal column due, most often, to overload), which was indeed observed by many specialists on skeletons.

Archeological findings of early
 domesticated asses

     

African wild ass - the origin
of donkeys

  Another interesting point is the relationship of the members of the Family Equidae (horses, donkeys and zebras). Genetic reports tell us that donkeys are much closer to zebras than to horses. Horses and donkeys most likely diverged way before donkeys and zebras. A consequence of this can be observed as the result of mating between horses and donkeys: the mule, which is an infertile animal, with a unique number of chromosomes (63).

        Ultimately, the wild asses were the main “sponsor” for the broadcast of the domesticated genetic and phenotypic variation: the donkeys. These adorable animals played – and still do – a vital role regarding food distribution, advent of trades between Africa and Western Asia and, obviously, the settlement and organization of early cities and pastoral societies.

Online resources:

http://archaeology.about.com/od/domestications/qt/donkeys.htm

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10437-012-9126-8

http://archaeology.about.com/gi/o.htm?zi=1/XJ&zTi=1&sdn=archaeology&cdn=education&tm=20&f=11&su=p284.13.342.ip_&tt=13&bt=0&bts=0&zu=http%3A//www.pnas.org/content/105/10/3715

https://cowofgold.wikispaces.com/Donkey

Species identification

For the final project of the course “Human Animal Interactions – ANSC 305”, I have chosen to talk about donkeys. Donkeys are currently classified as a domestic animal in our society, belonging to the phylogenetic Family Equidae, in which the famous horses are also included. Their scientific name is Equus africanus asinus.

Equus africanus asinus

Online resources:

http://bioweb.uwlax.edu/bio203/s2009/wells_kels/Classification.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asinus